The horizontal line represents the person’s life.1635 - born1705 - “The Lives
of Painters”1709 - died

Piles, RogerDe

, an ingenious Frenchman, was born
at Clameci, of a good family, in 1635 and was educated
at Nevers, Auxerre, and Paris, and lastly studied divinity
in the Sorbonne. In the mean lime, he cultivated the
art of painting, which he was supposed to understand in
theory as well as practice. The former accomplishment
led him to an acquaintance with du Fresnoy, whose Latin
poem upon painting he translated into French. Menage
also became acquainted with his great merit, and procured
him, in 1652, to be appointed tutor to the son of Mons
| Amelot: in which he gave such satisfaction, that, when his
pupil was old enough to travel, he attended him to Italy.
There he had an opportunity of gratifying his taste for
painting; and upon his return to Paris, he devoted himself to the study of that art, and soon acquired a name
among connoisseurs. In 1682, Amelot, his quondam pupil, being sent on an embassy to Venice, de Piles attended
him as secretary; and, during his residence there, was sent
by the marquis de Louvois into Germany, to purchase pictures for the king, and also to execute a commission relating to state affairs. In 1685, he attended M. Amelot to
Lisbon; and in 1689 to Switzerland, in the same capacity.
In 1692, he was sent to Holland, apparently as a picturecollector, but in reality to act secretly with the friends of
France. On this occasion, however, he was discovered,
and thrown into prison, where he continued till the peace
of Ryswick, and amused himself with writing “The Lives
of Painters.” In 1705, old as he was, he attended Amelot
into Spain, when he went as ambassador extraordinary:
but, the air of Madrid not agreeing with him, he was forced
to return, and died in 1709, aged seventy-four.

Besides his “Translation of Fresnoy,” and “Lives of
the Painters,” of which there is an English translation, he
wrote “An Abridgement of Anatomy, accommodated to
the arts of Painting and Sculpture;” “Dialogues upon
the Knowledge of Painting, and the judgement to be
formed of Pictures;” “A Dissertation upon the Works of
the most famous Painters;” “The Elements of practical
Painting,” &c. In all these there is a considerable knowledge of his art, but many of his opinions have been justly
controverted by more recent writers, and particularly by
sir Joshua Reynolds in his Lectures, 1

This text has been generated using commercial OCR software,
and there are still many problems; it is slowly getting better
over time.
The text was scanned and OCRd several times, and
a majority version of each line of text was chosen.
Please don't reuse the content
(e.g. do not post to wikipedia)
without asking liam
at holoweb dot net first (mention the colour of your socks in the mail),
because I am still working on fixing errors.
Thanks!